I'm not going to be Mrs Cruise IV, says Vanessa: The Crown actress speaks out to quash 'ludicrous' rumours she is engaged to the Mission Impossible actor

Vanessa Kirby, who plays Princess Margaret in the hit Netflix drama The Crown, has spoken out for the first time to quash ‘ludicrous’ persistent rumours that she and Tom Cruise are engaged to marry.

‘There’s literally zero truth in it,’ the actress said of the suggestion, which first arose when she began filming Mission: Impossible 6 opposite Cruise.

‘I’ve been in a relationship for two years! The rumours came out after I’d met Tom, once, in a roomful of people. We hadn’t started filming, and all of a sudden we’re getting married! It’s so bizarre. My boyfriend found it hilarious.’

Vanessa Kirby, who plays Princess Margaret in the hit Netflix drama The Crown, has spoken out for the first time to quash ‘ludicrous’ persistent rumours that she and Tom Cruise are engaged to marry

Ms Kirby won plaudits for her bullseye portrait of the Queen’s sister in the Netflix series The Crown, the first series of which was streamed a year ago.

She completed work on her second (and last) series in the early summer. ‘I was sad to hang up the wig for the last time!’ she told me. (Those episodes will be available from December 8.)

The actress believes the Cruise marriage talk took off because her own relationship wasn’t public knowledge.

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She never discussed the rumour with Cruise. ‘I didn’t bring it up. And he never mentioned it. I don’t think he even knows. The whole thing’s ridiculous.’

Mission Impossible film-maker Chris McQuarrie cast Vanessa as a baddie after seeing her as the princess.

In the season one finale, Margaret’s hoped-for marriage to divorcee Group Captain Peter Townsend has been vetoed by her big sister, and she feels lost.

Ms Kirby won plaudits for her bullseye portrait of the Queen’s sister in the Netflix series The Crown, the first series of which was streamed a year ago

Ms Kirby worked with writer Peter Morgan to chart the Princess’s unhappiness. ‘We started with her at 17, at her sister’s wedding. I just knew I had to set her up as this little girl who was this bright flame — and then how did she become the woman in the wheelchair?’

Kirby’s portrait of Margaret is a brilliant exploration of someone who has had their heart broken, time and again.

In one episode in season two, she breaks down in her bedroom, hurling crystal tumblers at the wall as an Ella Fitzgerald track plays in the background.

‘She does this melancholy dance. You rarely saw her on her own, and I always imagined her alone in the house, grieving for her father — her sister preoccupied with a husband and kids and so busy being Queen. She would feel redundant, isolated; ostracised. I just imagined these dark nights of the soul, rattling around in Clarence House.’

But Margaret meets her match in photographer-about-town Antony Armstrong-Jones. She spots him at a wedding, and later collars him at a society soiree.

I just knew I had to set her up as this little girl who was this bright flame — and then how did she become the woman in the wheelchair?

As played by Matthew Goode, Armstrong-Jones lived life to the full. One scene has him in a threesome with old friends.

And when the Queen hosts a party for him and Margaret, she senses that his interactions with female guests aren’t as innocent as they appear.

Margaret, though, is unfazed, and informs a friend, in frank terms, what it is she most enjoys about the Lothario.

Ms Kirby said she’s pleased she got to see Margaret ‘falling in love’, though she would have liked to stay with the part until the end. It was always going to be the case, though, that another actress would portray the princess in seasons three and four — joining Olivia Colman, who has replaced Foy as Her Majesty (as I revealed last month).

Next year, Ms Kirby returns to the stage in a contemporary version of Strindberg’s Miss Julie, which was written by Polly Stenham with Kirby in mind. Called Julie, it will be directed by Carrie Cracknell, and is set in the kitchen of a London townhouse.

Later this month, Ms Kirby will host a private screening of two episodes of The Crown for War Child. She studied conflict resolution in South Africa and hopes to become an ambassador for the charity.